Sports editor once had hold on Martin

— Ben Epstein was the sports editor of the Arkansas Gazette from some point in the mid-1930s until 1943, when he went East and joined the New York Daily Mirror, which eventually assigned him to travel with the New York Yankees.

During spring training in 1953, author Roger Kahn and Epstein were in the lobby of a St. Petersburg, Fla., hotel. Kahn, obviously, was working on one of his marvelous baseball books, which in this case turned out to be October Men, eventually published in 2003. Yankees infielder Billy Martin also was in the lobby. Martin turned to Epstein and said, “I hear you used to be a wrestler.”

“Yeah,” Epstein said. Years earlier he had earned a living in his home state of Arkansas by wrestling as “Pat Rollo, the undefeated middleweight champion of Bulgaria.” Martin said, “I’ll show you some holds.” Epstein said fine, although Martin was 25 years younger.

“How’s this?” Martin asked, hoisting Epstein and starting an airplane-propeller twist. “Off,” Epstein said, not quite so genial. Martin dropped Epstein to the lobby floor, believing he was terminating the episode. Epstein applied a Bulgarian twist. Martin cried out in pain. Epstein asked, “Had enough?” Martin shouted, “Anything you want. Lemme loose.”

Epstein said, “When I said, ‘Had enough?’ that was the first time Pat Rollo, the undefeated middleweight champion of Bulgaria, had ever spoken in English.”

Epstein covered the Yankees until he died in the summer of 1958. He was only 50 years old.

There was a time when professional boxing at Little Rock flourished in short bursts of activity. An ambitious promoter would schedule maybe a couple of fight cards per month.

The familiar names in those days would have included heavyweight Bob Sikes (who died in 1989), heavyweight Ragon Kinney, light heavyweight Sonny Ingram, welterweight Buddy Holderfield, lightweight Ed Walker, etc. And by then, elemental boxing fans would realize they hadn’t seen a “live” card in more than a year.

Little Rock middleweight Jermain Taylor pushed Arkansas into a boxing mecca in 2001, when he turned pro. By 2005, he was ready to fight world middleweight champion Bernard Hopkins in Las Vegas. Hopkins had made 20-some title defenses, but Taylor won on a 12-round split decision. In the process, he was awarded four championship belts (WBC, WBA, IBF, WBO). Taylor repeated in a rematch five months later.

A year or so later, Taylor lost the middleweight title and these days rarely boxes more than two or three times a year. There was something startling in the state two or three years ago, when Taylor still held the middleweight title. It was a contest for something on the lines of “most popular athlete.” Normally, it would go to the state’s most popular college football or basketball player, but Jermain Taylor won it.

Sports, Pages 16 on 01/29/2013

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